Structural Degradation

TRANSLATED BY JONATHAN LOTT

Everyday life is what each person experiences on a daily basis, depending on where they live and the activities they carry out in their work and studies. In community groups, in agricultural work, in religious organizations, and, in essence, in all the actions that are carried out in the geographic space in which one lives.

It is necessary to have this reference as an important basis for carrying out a critique. We must face reality with historical awareness so that social amnesia does not creep stealthily upon us and drown us in the sea of hopelessness. It is essential to contribute to actions, from the personal to those in family groups, social organizations, and communities.

To continue, I will break down each of the words in this article to better facilitate the understanding of this necessary content. Degradation has various synonyms such as: degeneration, debasement, humiliation, corruption, dishonor, vileness, prostitution—according to the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE). (These terms have been translated into English.

Of the above words, the most well-known may be corruption and prostitution. For the purposes of this content, the aforementioned will be highlighted with the intention of making a historical link between these practices in the daily life of people.There is greater emphasis on the first one, corruption, because it is one of the main complaints in each of our social spaces, such as public transport, parks, markets, etc—places which are shared constantly. However, there is little research on this social problem due to how delicate, sensitive, or offensive it can be, but being a collective social complaint, corruption is a situation that affects the population in an integral way and it is necessary to talk about the subject no matter how uncomfortable it may be.

It is therefore essential to carry out studies that allow us to understand the conditions and forms (with respect to their social, cultural, economic, political, environmental and other dimensions) that relate for the social problem of corruption to exist, both at a general level and with particularity within State institutions. It is necessary to emphasize that the people of Guatemala work in inhumane conditions of exploitation and inequality to maintain the institutions that are supposed to exist to contribute to guaranteeing the Human Rights of the population, but reality dictates the opposite.

Structure of Corruption

It is necessary to define the problem of corruption from a particular perspective such as that offered by social anthropology, which is why the French anthropologist Jean Pierre Olivier de Sardan identifies a set of “cultural logics” that, as a whole, constitute a “corruption complex”. Corruption is created in particular territorialities and its dynamics are implicit in everyday situations linked to culture, which are consolidated in people’s own ways of life.
The structure refers to the way in which the State was configured, which integrates four important elements that constitute it: Government. Population. Territory. Division of Powers.

History in retrospect shows that on November 22, 1824, the Federal Republic of Central America was established. It was made up of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. Together they formed a federated state, with a president and a federal congress, while each one maintained a state with its own leader or president of State. “The end of the Federation began when the liberal government of Dr. Mariano Gálvez fell on February 1, 1838.”

This background is essential to understand the beginnings of the Guatemalan State, which did not arise in a particular way, but was a process of gradual detachment from the Central American Federal Government. It thus achieved its independence from the previously agglutinated countries, establishing its constitution of the State defining its territoriality, population and political power. When the Foundation of the Republic of Guatemala was completed, on March 21, 1847, the then-president of the State of Guatemala, Rafael Carrera, signed decree Number 15, with which the Republic of Guatemala was founded.

Corruption is as historical as the Spanish invasion and colonization itself through violent plundering and exploitation of the labor force, which was perpetuated and has been transformed to this day. The criollo became the new oligarchy, and the massive dispossession of lands resulted in political and economic power, thus generating a perpetuation of corrupt processes and consequently, deep poverty for the majority of the population.

Collage of Corruption

Colonial and current historical events are related to corruption in State institutions and are an important part of understanding today’s reality. The liberal reforms were carried out by the dictator Justo Rufino Barrios, who made “changes in the socio-economic structure of the country, including the dispossession of the land from its original owners, affecting not only the Church but also many indigenous people organized in communal ejidos.” According to publications, “he confiscated indigenous community lands.”

“Military dictatorships characterized by being conservative, corrupt and counterinsurgent were institutionalized.”
Former presidents Alfonso Portillo and Efrain Rítos Montt were part of the Moreno network, a gang involved in smuggling and tax fraud in ports, borders, and airports, dismantled in 1996, which was made up of high-ranking army officers.

Current emblematic cases such as: Co-optation of the state, La línea, corruption in contracts, and the process of purchasing vaccines for COVID-19, to mention a few. Co-optation of the University of San Carlos of Guatemala. Many other cases can be found.

Historical conditions have managed to consolidate the Illegal Corps and Clandestine Security Apparatuses (CIACS) that survive, through transformation and adapting their activities. They take advantage of the resources of the institutions, made up of dispersed military personnel, and state companies, which carry out informal work such as kidnappings and intimidation, managing to become macro-criminality.

Fight against Corruption

In the Guatemalan Revolution of 1944, a series of important changes were implemented for the Guatemalan population, a period also known as the Ten Years of Spring and its legacy is still in force, such as: the ladder of education, university autonomy, the creation of the Guatemalan Social Security Institute, among others.
In 1951, Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán promoted agrarian reform, aware that the situation of poverty was consolidated by the massive dispossession of land from indigenous populations, and thus disrupted the interests of the oligarchy, which led to its overthrow in 1954.

The International Commission Against Impunity (CICIG) discovered relevant cases of corruption which threatened the particular interests of the Oligarchy and CIACS generated the conditions for the nefarious president of the time, Jimmy Morales, to dispense with CICIG’s mandate, contributing to the perpetuation of the swampy, deep system of corruption of which he was also a part.

Breaking the silence is not easy, but it is necessary because corruption threatens our lives.” Lisseth Santos
Lisseth Santos, woman committed to social transformation for a better world for all people. Profession: social worker, with a background in social anthropology, graduate of the Centro Universitario de Occidente.